Beginning of Forever
by ashesandhoney
Summary: Will and Tessa's wedding night and the early days of their marriage. The most recent update is set in the library.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: (this story is just a smidge slow getting started but it earns its rating and maybe just a little better than its rating but I've read other stuff on this site that is as racy or more so here's my Wessa Wedding Night Fic)_

Beginning of Forever

Will closed the door. Then he locked it. Then he checked the lock. He considered dragging a dresser in front of that but decided against it. The room was warm, a fire in the grate and the witchlight shone at about half strength making it seem smaller and cozier than it really was. It was a small suite of rooms, larger than either of their individual rooms had been with a private sitting room and a bedroom beyond it. All the furniture was the heavy carved wood that filled the rest of the Institute but it was theirs now. Will took a moment to appreciate that. Theirs. From here on out, things would be theirs.

Tessa had walked toward the big window and pushed back the curtain. She was beautiful. She'd been beautiful since the moment he had met her but the gold of the wedding gown and the way her hair had been swept back and up in a cascade of curls and the way she had looked at him all day was like a spell. She wasn't quite real and hadn't been since he'd approached her at the ceremony. The gold was edged in white lace. Simpler than the style might have called for but more fitting to her for it. There were gold bands wound into her hair that caught the firelight. She turned and sat on the window seat. Perched on the edge. Eyes just a fraction too wide.

"How are you?" he asked her pulling an ottoman over to sit in front of her. She was taller than he was like this and he had to look up at her.

"I want to do it again," she said.

"You're joking," he said, "You can't want to do that whole hellish day again."

"No," she shook her head and said more emphatically, "No." He was glad that she saw it the same way he did. Women weren't supposed to like hearing that their wedding had been hellish. The groom certainly wasn't supposed to declare it.

Her eyes roamed the room, taking it in then taking him in. He reached out and she put her hands in his. He ran a thumb over her knuckles then raised them so that he could kiss her fingers.

"I want to get married again," she said. "I just don't want the rest of those people to be there. I don't think I want anyone to be there. Just us." She squeezed his hands and looked down before whispering, "I didn't realize just how public it was going to be. I didn't realize how many people would be there. I think I'd imagined that it would be about us."

"Instead we got the Clave Politics sideshow," Will said unkindly waving his hand in the direction of the door and the party that they had finally escaped but was still going on somewhere floors below them. Charlotte had taken over hosting duties and told them to leave when she'd seen Will starting to glare and Tessa's face fall into the wide eyed look she was giving him now. "If one more person offers me congratulations, I might throttle them. Even if they genuinely meant it. "

That made Tessa laugh, "Me too."

Will would be taking over the Institute only a few months after the wedding and the Conclave wasn't entirely pleased with a future led by an 18 year old who had been considered a drunk and a bad-natured joke for most of his adolescence. That his fiance had such an odd story and wasn't entirely Nephilim had just added fuel to rumours and dissent. They hadn't so much gotten married as they found themselves throwing a stage show intended to convince the assembled Shadowhunters that they were both respectable and normal. Even more than that, it was a way of proving to the Clave that William Herondale was a mature and capable adult worth following into battle. Charlotte had been helping him set up a series of these shows since his promotion had been announced. That his wedding had been dragged into it was something neither he nor Tessa had been able to convincingly argue against. Though they'd discussed the possibility of elopement and leaving the country as the guest list had ballooned.

The wedding had been held in the ballroom and it had been full of people. Most of them people unknown to either the bride or groom, who had one blood relation between them present. Tessa didn't count the Starkweather cousins though she had been charming and kind to them in the weeks they'd stayed at the Institute before the ceremony.

"Do you think they'll ever accept me?" Tessa asked him, her face very serious.

There had been comments. Comments all evening. Little whispered comments that still managed to make it back to them. Will who had spent years with the Nephilim whispering about his drunkenness, his whoring, his miserable personality, didn't flinch as those rumours crossed the tables again.

But Tessa hadn't truly been exposed to the horrors of the high society that hid behind the Conclave's mask of civility. Tessa's expression tightened at every mention of "warlock" as they moved though the crowds. Will had heard the word "whore" appended to that once but Tessa hadn't. It took every bit of Will's hard earned self control not to wade into them and find the right person to hit. Starting a fight would legitimize it, turn it from a rumour into a a political weapon. Charlotte told him that. Gideon reminded him. Even his father, during that afternoon when he'd first brought Tessa to his family, had told him much the same thing. So he hadn't. He hadn't so much as snapped a retort.

That every time he felt the anger rise he still expected to feel Jem's hand close on his arm did not improve his mood. He'd found himself looking up and scanning the crowd for those familiar silver eyes when he needed someone to understand. Not just to tell him why it was a bad idea but to truly understand why breaking that woman's nose was so enticing.

"You saved them all when you destroyed Mortmain," Will said to Tessa. Jem would have understood that anyone who said things to her that made her look at him like this should have had something broken. He sat up straighter so that he could cup her face between his hands. "You are strong and brave and kind and a better person than all of them. They'll come to see it. I promise." He kissed her. Gently. Not the public kisses of the wedding and the reception but a real kiss. She leaned into it and he stood, pulling her up with him so that he could wrap his arms around her. "I don't care about them," he murmured into her mouth.

"You should," she said back through the kiss.

"Not tonight," he said.

"No, not tonight," she agreed mouth still against his.

"I'm going to take you to bed now," he said.

"Good," she said kissing across his jaw and down his neck. He swung her up into his arms. The corset and the billows of skirt made it uncomfortable for both of them. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they laughed their way into the bedroom.

They'd chosen this suite of rooms for this chamber. Charlotte and Henry had offered to move out of the larger suite on the main floor early so that they could have it but they'd declined. This room had high ceilings and built in bookshelves along one wall though they were empty right now. It also had a balcony which looked out over the courtyard and the gates. The bed was huge. Large enough for five people and raised up on a platform that Will almost stumbled on because by that point Tessa's dress had already snagged on the door frame and they were laughing too hard.

It might have been that they'd almost fallen but it was more likely the stress of the day and the comments and the planning that had come before it. Whatever it was, when Will laid her down on the bed and leaned over her, they were both still giggling. It felt right to Will that they would start here. Start with laughter.

"We're going to build our entire lives on this moment," he said.

"Don't make this stressful too," Tessa said but she was still grinning.

"It isn't, I don't mean it to be stressful, this moment is already perfect," he said. "We're going to build our entire lives on laughter and love and us, together. We're a we now. You and me. Forever. Forget the rest of them."

She twisted her fingers into his shirt and pulled him down to kiss. He wore black ceremonial gear with runes picked out in gold along the edges. It was designed for wedding ceremonies and the top buttons could be undone easily so the bride could draw the marriage rune over his heart. She pushed him back so that she could open those buttons and smooth her hand over it. She'd drawn it. Her first rune drawn in ceremony, not lessons, not practice. She always smiled when she finished a rune. She had said once that it was as though the magic of the Grey Book was telling her that yes, yes she really was one of them.

Her hand was narrow against him and she tapped out his heartbeat with her fingers. He put his hand on the same place on her though the mark he'd drawn hadn't stayed. Like all runes ever laid on her, it had vanished into her skin like ink sinking into water. The crowd had gasped audibly when it had happened. It was the point that the day had started to go downhill. She smiled at him now. Softer. Not a silly grin but something warmer. Something that made him forget that anyone had gasped at them or made little comments under their breaths.

Hands to hearts, he leaned into her and kissed again. She slid her hand lower and started to undo the rest of this buttons. He tossed the jacket away. He wore nothing below it and she let her hands wander over him. Slowly. Stroking scars, tracing runes, outlining lines of muscle. He leaned over her, sitting on the edge of the bed and propped up by extended arms. She ran her hands down his arms.

Her fingers were cool but her skin was soft and the expression on her face, like he was some sort of revelation, melted his heart. He held himself still for her. It wasn't easy but if she wanted to go slow, they would go slow. It took her a long time but her fingers finally found the gray mark on his chest and traced it as she had traced others but her eyes found his face as she did.

"He should have been here," Will said. Not sure if he meant at the wedding itself or in his place at the wedding. He didn't let himself dwell on it.

"They're not going to let him out of the City at all for another year," Tessa said and Will could hear his own anger when he'd heard that news in her voice.

"I know," Will said. Her hand was still covering the rune when he said, "You didn't wear it."

They both knew what he was talking about. They'd discussed it weeks before. She hadn't taken the jade pendant off since Jem had given it to her. Will had told her to wear it for the wedding but she hadn't. She'd worn just a gold chain at her throat, no pendant at all. No angel, no jade.

"There was already so much talk. Sophie recommended against it. Jem and I, it was public enough that people knew," she said. "I carried it but not where they could see it." She pulled it out, on it's own chain. A circle of stone against her palm. It had been tucked low in the dress against her skin and when Will took it from her the stone was warm enough that it felt to him like a piece of her.

"Sit up," he said moving back. She did, watching him carefully. Her face serious. Not wary, not quite, but as though she weren't sure what his reaction was going to be. He climbed up on the bed behind her and removed the plain necklace, dropping the chain off the bed onto the floor and reclasping her pendant in its place. Did she wish it wasn't him here with her? He wondered as his hands settled on her shoulders, warm skin and a scratchy edging of lace against his palms.

"Is this dress comfortable?" he asked because he needed to say something that wasn't that last thought.

"God, no," she said, "Did you want to try it on?"

"If it means taking it off of you, yes, I'll wear it," he said. She leaned back into him and looked up at him. The green at her throat made her more Tessa somehow. Less a shimmering bride and more his Tessa. Complicated, strange and maybe a little sad but full of humour and compassion. The look in her eyes left no doubt that she wanted him there. He pressed a kiss to her upturned forehead.

"You won't like it," she teased with her head tilted back against his bare chest. Her hair was falling down now though it had lasted through endless dances and rounds of congratulations. The strands trailed over his stomach when she moved her head.

"Perhaps not," he admitted. "How about we take it off of you and no one wears it? Or we could go see if that long lost great uncle of mine has finished drinking his way through the wine cellar and talk him into wearing it out of here."

"That would not help your reputation as a mad drunk yourself," she told him as she twisted so that she was kneeling, facing him in a cascade of white and gold.

"Maybe I want to go back to being a mad drunk," he said.

"A mad drunk in a wedding dress?" she asked.

"I always said that I would be a radiant bride," he said with all the grandiosity he could manage while shirtless and flushed then he pursed his lips and said, "Though I don't know that I'd be able to hold a candle to you."

"If you want it off, you're going to have to start with the buttons down the back. I can't reach them myself." she said climbing off the bed. Standing beside the bed, orange firelight flickering and white witchlight glowing over his bare skin, he attempted to undo the tiny pearl buttons. He could feel her gaze on him. She resisted actually laughing at him but he could feel suppressed humour in her body. A vibration of almost laughter. She was touching his shoulders, brushing fingers over his skin and that was too much of a distraction to fight with clothing.

His frustration flared.

He leaned up and put his lips against her ear and whispered, "I'll buy you another one," and then grabbed the fabric and pulled. Hard. Tessa yelped and had to grab the poster of the bed to keep from falling as the dress split with a hiss of tearing silk. The pearls ticked as they rained to the floor and rolled away. They would be finding them for years, behind furniture or in the little gaps in the floorboards.

She spun around to look at him, incredulous. He grinned back and pulled the now ruined dress up over her head and dropped it in a heap. The silk where the buttons were attached was shredded. She tried to imagine explaining it to the new maid but Will kissed her and those thoughts fled as he pulled her close. She wore enough undergarments that she was still very nearly dressed but he was working on that.

"Don't you dare ruin this corset too," she muttered to him and he begrudgingly unlaced it properly and then threw it at the empty book shelf as she collapsed back onto the bed taking her first unrestricted breath in hours.

"Why is there so much of this?" Will asked holding up something white with lace edging that he figured was a petticoat.

"Because I am a proper lady," Tessa told him in her best Jessamine impersonation, down to the fake accent. It was not a good impersonation.

"Can't you be a proper lady in less white linen?" he asked. She raised her hips so that he could pull off the last of the skirts. "How is there more under that? How did you move or breathe all day? I have seen you run in a dress. How did you run in a dress like this?"

She laughed at him and pulled the shift off as he finally loosened the tie on the drawers. She lay back on the top of the covers with nothing on. He stood over her as the humour warred with nerves across her face. They'd been bare together only once and there had never been a moment like this. It had been faster, more desperate need, less gentle exploration.

He lay down beside her on his stomach and studied her face, ignoring the rest of her. That his mind was thinking about the exact curves of everything below her jaw line was hidden by his smile. When her expression relaxed into an answering smile, he leaned over and kissed her cheek, then her neck, then her bare shoulder. She rolled towards him and returned the pattern, cheek, throat, shoulder. Bolder, he picked a new path, throat, chest, right over her invisible rune, stomach. The red marks where the clothing had pinched were fading back into the smooth pale porcelain of her skin. She followed the reverse, lips against his stomach, over his heart, just below his ear.

They passed this game back and forth until Tessa climbed up into his lap and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply. The feeling of all of her against him made him forget his own name. Her body was softer than his. There was strength in her but it wasn't enough to overpower the sensation he had that she was breakable and precious and he needed to be careful and gentle with her like this.

Tessa, on the other hand, was through with careful and gentle. Her hands were on the button of his pants. He had to lift her to get them off. As she settled back into his lap, her bare legs over his, he felt her stomach muscles contract where she pressed against the length of him. He hands tightened on her waist as he tried to think around the feeling of her skin against so much of him. What do I do next? His imagination failed him completely.

"Let me go," she told him, her voice different. Deeper or darker or somehow more in a way that he couldn't articulate. He let go of her and looked up at her. He wondered as she ran her fingers through his hair how much of the amazement and the love and the desire beating their way through his chest was written on his face. When was the last time he'd been at a loss for words? How did he tell her?

"I love you," he said but it was a paltry stand in for what he was feeling at that moment.

"That's good," she said. "Because you're stuck with me, now." She rolled off of him and he felt a little like his skin was being doused in cold water where it was no longer against hers. She climbed up the bed and slid under the turned down covers. Her smile was an invitation but she crooked a finger at him just to make sure that he got the message.

He didn't slide in beside her. He slid in above her. She gathered him close and his heart eased to have her close again. Her arms around him and the teasing gone, she said, "I love you too, Will. I love you more everyday. I thought I loved you when I told you I would marry you but I didn't know how much I would love you now."

He'd said something like that to her once. It felt like a lifetime ago.

He shifted her below him and watched her face as he found the right place. He had hurt her the first time. She had promised him it wasn't bad but the look of surprise and pain on her face when it had happened had burned itself into a place at the back of his mind and he didn't think he'd ever get it out. He had hurt her without knowing exactly what he was doing. He didn't really know much more now but he wasn't going to do it twice.

When her body resisted him, too tight or too nervous, he pulled away. Her eyes opened and she said his name. He murmured, "Hush," and reached down with his hand and found the same place. She gasped and he swallowed hard trying to find a corner of his mind that was calm enough to tell him what to do.

"Does that hurt?" he asked gently, a finger finding the opening and sliding in. Not as large as his last attempt, this time there was no resistance. Her body closed around him. She shook her head and he pushed it in farther which made her eyes fall shut. Back and forth, a version of the rhythm they'd found that first time and it made her squirm a little. He could feel that resistance when he tried to slide in two fingers instead. Her lips were against his ear as she cuddled close to him and said, "Don't stop. You're not hurting me." He pushed both in and her body made room for him. She murmured appreciatively against his shoulder, not really words just little happy noises.

"Is this good?" he asked her as he experimented with rhythms. His own body was throbbing for him to stop dawdling but he could feel every change in her breathing and shift in her muscles like this and he liked it too much to stop. She nodded an answer to his question so he asked another, "Faster or slower?"

"Faster?" she suggested her voice breathy. She twisted her hips under his hand as he sped up and then slowed back down. Her body wasn't resisting him any more and she was both hotter and wetter than she had been when he'd started. He pushed in as far as his fingers could reach, cupping her with his palm. She jerked a little as he hit a part of the folds above the opening and she ground her hips down against his hand with a gasp that was less controlled than any sound he had ever heard her make. He met the motion by rubbing his palm across her, searching for that point that would bring that gasp again. Everything was slick and warm.

"Will," she murmured. Her upper body was twisted into him so that her head rested in the crook of his neck.

"Higher or lower?" he asked her.

"Higher," she told him and ducked her head a little tighter against his chest. He knew, knew from conversations and kisses that she did this when she blushed, when he'd embarrassed her. When she said the next part her voice was so soft that if she wasn't pressed into him, he wouldn't have been able to hear it, "Harder."

He used his fingers, sliding out of her and moving higher until she gasped again. He rubbed gently first and she squirmed against him. He slid his free hand around her to hold her hips in place before doing as she requested and rubbing harder.

"Oh god," she gasped out her fingers tightening in his hair and her breath coming in pants against his neck as she repeated his name like a prayer or a promise. It happened suddenly. Neither of them knew how to read the signs before her body tensed in his arms and muscles spasmed across her stomach. Her back arched, she pushed her hips into his hand. She was moaning then sharply she pushed his hand away, her fingers clumsy on his wrist. She shook against him and he drew her close. Shocked. The violence of her reaction left him speechless again. He ran his hand up and down her back like his mother had done when he'd been very small and in need of comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said into her hair which was still half up in it's fancy pile of curls.

"Don't," she said. "Don't be sorry. I don't know exactly what that was but it wasn't bad. It really wasn't. Please Will, don't apologize. It surprised me. That's all."

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No," she said. "No," she was calming, her body close to his, her skin no longer shivering at his touch. "I think that might have been incredible." She smiled up at him, curled close, eyes half closed. He kissed her lips gently. She lay her head against the pillow and played with his hair. It had been cut for the wedding and it wasn't long enough for her to wind her fingers through the strands the way she liked. He wondered how long he could get away with growing it as Head of the Institute. Were there restrictions on that? As the last of the shivering left her she was more relaxed than he could remember her being in weeks and he started to believe that maybe that had been incredible.

He started unwinding her hair, tossing pins and bands and the little white flowers over the edge of the bed so that they wouldn't get lost in the covers. As he worked on this project she started to run her hands over his chest and then lower. He wasn't as hard as he had been, the shock of her reaction had taken something out of it. Her hand touching him there brought it back almost immediately. She explored, watching his face much as he had watched hers. She was too gentle to bring him anywhere near the release he wanted but there was something about that that was thrilling all on its own. He abandoned freeing her hair and just plunged his hands into it, holding on as her fingers moved over him.

They lay on their sides, just a little apart though her feet were tangled with his somewhere in the blankets. He reached down and gathered her hands, holding them in his and taking a few steadying breaths. He felt jumpy and needy and each glancing contact of her palm or tracing finger was making it worse. Her expression was a question that he answered in his gentlest voice, "I liked it, but if you want to," there was a pause as he searched for a vocabulary that he hadn't known he didn't have, "do it properly, I need a moment," he said. He ran the vocabulary he did have, most of it gleaned from dock workers and drunks in taverns and decided there wasn't a syllable of it that he was willing to use in the same room as her.

"Take a moment then," she said kissing his hands where they wrapped around hers. "Because I do want to do it properly."

"I can't decide which I like better," he told her in a low voice. "You when you're blushing and tentative or you when you're bold and demanding."

"I'm not demanding," she argued with pursed lips and an adorable little scowl.

"You could be," he said. "I'd do anything you asked me to."

"I'll remember that," she said as she leaned up to kiss him hard and fast through a smile. He let her hands go and tilted her face up to kiss her slower and deeper. He pushed closer and she responded by rolling onto her back and drawing him down with her.

This time, coming together was as easy as breathing. She groaned as she pulled him closer or maybe he had made that sound, he wasn't sure. Her body had to adjust to make room for him but he moved slowly, a little deeper and a little deeper each time. There was no resistance, she didn't wince and though her mouth fell open, there was no pain on her face. He watched her to know when he went too fast or too deep before she was ready. The lines between them were already blurring. He moved against her slowly at first as the jumpy feeling in his skin changed form, stretching and curling into mounting heat and pressure somewhere in his stomach.

"Faster or slower?" he asked her and his voice sounded rough.

"Faster," she said and he let instinct lead as the rhythm between them changed. There was a little of that desperation and need in it but it felt different than it had all those months ago. The first time had been drenched in guilt and grief and fear. The love had shone through and pulled them together in spite of it all but this was different. There was no fear here and the guilt and the grief had molded themselves into a sadness shared. A sadness wrapped around the same missing piece in two different lives.

With that thought he slowed again, wrenching control back from his instincts. He wrapped his hand around her necklace and used it to pull her face towards him. He was probably too rough when he did it. Her head jerked a little but he caught her neck to steady her as he kissed her mouth. The pendant caught against her skin by his palm. Understanding him, in a way he imagined no one else ever would, her hand found that spot on his shoulder where the silvered rune lay as she kissed him back hard. The same missing piece.

The intensity changed. Harder now, not just faster. Her hips pushing into him as he thrust hard and even. Her forehead creased a little which each thrust that pushed her back. He found himself watching it. Her eyes shut, her lips parted and her reactions written across her face. When he got too close, when that pressure started to build to a point that felt unbearable, he stopped.

"Do you want to do it again?" he asked in that same rough voice. He pulled away far enough that their bodies separated and it felt like losing a piece of himself.

"It?" she asked looking confused and as unfulfilled as he felt, "Are we finished?"

"I'm not finished," he said grinning at her. "This isn't finished. I meant to say the thing where I made you scream. Do you want to do that again?" Her eyes were wide, nervous, but it wasn't the nervousness that came from fear, it was a nervousness born of anticipation.

"Yes," she said flushing but not looking away from him, "Now?"

He answered her with a nod before he reentered her sliding as far into her as he could, which pulled a gasp out of her. He held her face with one hand, keeping her looking at him. The other hand ran down the skin of her breasts and stomach and found that point between them where he disappeared inside her. He thrust gently again as he felt around looking for the right spot again.

"Lower," she told him and he watched her eyes squeeze shut and her mouth open just a fraction wider when he found the right spot. He grinned and stayed slow until she said nearly incoherent, "You can, I want, Will, please, harder."

When her back arched this time and her fingers dug into his back, hard enough to hurt, he knew what was coming. He moved his hand away and pulled her body close but he didn't stop moving against her. This time when the pressure started to build, he let it. She shook around him as he let his attempts at keeping control fall away. The little murmured prayer was back, his name and the phrase, "yes please," repeated where her mouth pressed against his cheek or his neck or his hair.

One of his hands was on her hip, the other tangled in her hair, neither near that place. He didn't understand this reaction or where it came from but he could feel the same tension running through her muscles as the time before. When her head fell back this time, she actually did scream as she clung to him. Her body tightened around him hard enough that it almost hurt and his release crashed through him as her's crested. Fingers tightening, muscles spasming, faces close enough that they were breathing the same air.

If there was any doubt before that it was the same thing happening to both of them, it was blown away in that shared moment.

He collapsed on top of her and rolled to the side, afraid he would crush her. Her eyes were unfocused as they followed him. She was flushed and sweating and breathing like she'd been running for her life. He touched her face and they shared a smile.

"Do you regret it yet?" he asked her grinning.

"Regret what?" she asked blinking slowly at him.

"Marrying me," he said. "You just signed up to spend every night with me for a lifetime."

"William," she said rolling towards him, propping herself up on an elbow and looking down at him. "I think I could get used to that."

"We should practice, frequently," he said. He hooked his finger into her necklace again and pulled her down to kiss and then down against his side where she nestled in and put her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Her voice was sleepy but serious when she said, "I will never regret marrying you. I am unimaginably lucky to have you. I love you so much."

"I love you too," he said. She was already asleep when he stroked her cheek and said, "I'm the lucky one, Tess. I hope I can be even half the man you deserve."

Laying together, Will imagined he could see his lifetime stretched out in front of him. Every day of the rest of his life would start with her beside him. A lifetime started right here.

_AN2: Assuming I am right that this is acceptable for an M rating - this is a continuing series that is all fluffy sex scenes - I've currently got 3 more chapters to post. If I am wrong and this isn't acceptable for an M rating then I suppose it will be taken down and disappear and you'll have to go find the rest on AO3. (Thanks for reading either way!)_


	2. Chapter 2

Sunlight shone between the curtains, she mustn't have closed them all the way the night before. Tessa lay on her stomach, stretched out, with her face buried in the mass of her hair on the pillow. She felt heavy and warm and safe. She let herself drift in that feeling. She wore nothing. A weight lay across her lower back. Skin on skin.

"Will?" she whispered turning toward him. It was his arm draped around her waist. He still slept. Her hair was everywhere, tangled and there were still pins in it somewhere but she gathered it and pushed it behind her so that she could see him clearly. She lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows and just watched him sleep. She forgot sometimes that he was young. When he slept, he looked like a little boy. His hair was thick and soft between her fingers as she lifted it off his forehead and pushed it back. He stirred but didn't wake.

She lay her head back down on the pillow and watched his eyes move below his lids. His breathing and the early morning birds were the only sounds that she could hear. She wanted to let him sleep but she couldn't resist the urge to touch him. Sliding closer, she ran her fingers over his eye lids and down his jaw, tracing the shape of his lips and the curve of his throat. Down to his shoulder, past that line on his throat where his skin lightened, hidden from the sun by shirts and collars. The runes on his chest. The shape of his collar bone.

"Good morning," he muttered and she looked up at him, startled to find him awake.

"I love you," she said as a greeting.

"I love you," he said and the arm around her waist was no longer just a weight. His hand caught her hip and pulled her close to him. She turned herself so that her body lined up with his and she could wrap her arms around his neck.

"Morning are good," she said.

He kissed the end of her nose and then across her cheek and down to her jaw, bypassed her mouth and went back up the other side. Her fingers traced patterns on his neck as he kissed her forehead and her eyelids. She raised her face for a proper kiss and he pulled back. She tried to follow him but he caught her chin with a hand.

"You look so disappointed," he said smiling.

"Kiss me," she said.

"I will, in a moment," he said.

And his lips were back on the side of her neck, her head tilting back as she pushed her body in closer to his. His hands found her waist and pushed her back a little. A little incoherent protest escaped her. He was kissing a line down her chest. Each kiss was a physical thing. Marks on her skin that she was surprised to find were not actually visible.

She looked down at him as he took her breast into his mouth. This wasn't a single mark on a piece of skin, this lit up nerves across her entire body. She gasped and arched her back to push tighter into him. His hair brushed over her skin as he leaned close, sucking harder.

"Oh, Will," escaped her in a gasp when she felt a graze of teeth. He pulled away and before she could protest his hand was there, thumb rubbing over sensitive skin while he moved onto the other side and started all over again.

She didn't remember lying back but he was over her. His lips were flushed and he was smiling at her when he finally leaned in for the kiss he had promised her. She pulled him down and kissed him hard. Her breasts brushed against his chest and the skin sparked with every bit of contact. He was pressed down against her as he teased her mouth open so the kiss could deepen. He was heavy and solid. Hard muscles and skin like warm silk against ever inch of her.

She had to struggle a little to get her legs free. She held his face so the kiss wouldn't stop while she lifted a foot to run it up the back of his leg. This time he was the one that groaned so she did it again. Running a foot up over his calves to his thigh until her pinned hips meant she could't reach any higher. Her hands traced down, out of his hair over his shoulders down to the dip of his lower back where his hips narrowed. Their mouths were still together but the kiss was almost an afterthought. They were both thinking about her hands.

She ran her nails up over his sides. He gasped and pushed against her body harder, pressing her back against the mattress tight enough that she feared she wouldn't be able to breathe. She didn't stop. No more than a graze, it wouldn't leave marks but she ran her nails from the tops of his thighs, the lowest point she could reach, up his back to his back in a continuous line while he pressed his face into her neck and his body against hers.

"I want to do it properly," she whispered into his ear when her hands had made it to his neck and she'd spread her palms against his rapid pulse.

He pulled up enough to look at her and they shared a smile before he slid a little lower down her body and then pushed back up, sinking inside her. She was sore. It hadn't hurt the night before but this almost did. He was still pressed against her but now he was inside as well. Surrounded in him, the rest of the world was impossible. Things outside of Will and her body and this near pain, just didn't exist.

"Be gentle," she said as the first few movements made her stomach clench.

He slowed and the pressure eased, his face right above hers, and the tension drained. She relaxed and the soreness washed away in a wave of desire and the blue of his eyes above her. She started to trail her foot up his leg again and now she could feel the muscles under his skin as he moved against her. He did something with his hips that made it deeper and she gasped and grabbed on. Her legs wrapped around him as well, holding him close, clinging to that feeling.

"So you liked that?" his voice was breathy and it was more of a sensation against her skin than a sound.

"Do it again," she answered in a voice just as lost.

He did and then he did it again until her breathing was ragged and the muscles of her thighs had just started to tremble. When his hand left her breast and traveled down over the plane of her stomach, she knew exactly what he was planning. She locked her arms more tightly around his neck and he held her close as his hips and his fingers moved together. The release hit her hard, arching her back, clenching her fingers into fists and bringing a scream from her throat that she hadn't intended. This time he didn't stop in a panic to make sure she hadn't been hurt. This time he pressed his lips to hers and kept going.

Thoughts were impossible. She had felt the first one coming but the second one took them both by surprise and he let out a gasping groan that might have been her name while her legs tightened around his waist and she lost control of her muscles. His body pushed into hers a few last desperate times as his release finished shuddering through him.

"I didn't know," she said. Her face was tucked into some part of him but she wasn't entirely sure where the skin under her lips was, his neck maybe or his shoulder. Her voice had failed and she tried again, "I didn't know that it would be like that."

He made and inquisitive sound but didn't say anything. His heart was beating steady and loud.

"Explosive like that," she said. "You'd think people would mention it." But of course people wouldn't mention it. People would never mention it. They would never mention it either. But she'd never even heard a rumour of it. When people did talk about wedding nights, phrases like "wife's duty" were used and jokes were made about "lying back and thinking of England." She'd never heard anyone talk about it like it was wonderful and beautifully intense and left your whole body soaked in pleasure and warmth.

"I don't think it works like that for everyone," he said soundly a little embarrassed.

"Why?" she asked.

"I don't know," Will said. "Men in taverns say things but I never asked."

"Women made it sound like it would hurt and I should be prepared for it to be unpleasant but necessary. Even Charlotte warned me that it would hurt," she said. "It doesn't hurt and it is so much more than pleasant."

Will laughed at that, "It is so much better than pleasant and each time is better than the one before it."

She nodded. The first time had hurt, a little, that initial moment when they'd come together had been sharp and shocking. But Will had been there with his arms around her and his fingers on her face and his voice so soft and even that pain had been swept away by everything that came after.

"Maybe you're naturally talented," she said.

"Oh yes," he said. "I like that. I shall tell everyone. Naturally talented at killing things with swords and memorizing poetry and pleasing my wife in bed."

"You are," she was still drifting in that warm feeling like her body was less connected to herself and more connected to him. It was dreamlike. "And I am."

"You are?" he said. "Naturally talented? At which one? Swords?"

"No, I am your wife," she said liking the way it sounded and ignoring the swords comment.

"You are that. And naturally talented too. I was going to give you back if you weren't," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said as he laughed into her hair somewhere above her.

"You may find that you are correct," he said in a voice just a touch pompous that made her shove him in the ribs, "I wouldn't give you up for anything," he said in a less joking tone and his arms tightened around just a little.

"Do you find it hard to move after?" she asked a little later. They still lay curled together, the sun rising and brightening the room. She had no idea what time it was and didn't care.

"I always find it hard to move away from you," he said. Her head was on his shoulder and his fingers ran up and down her arm where it lay across his chest. Her skin didn't feel like it was on fire where he touched it but every bit of contact felt essential to her continued survival like the ability to breathe was dependent on his continued presence.

He rolled her over. The sudden movement took her by surprise but he met her eyes with mischief on his face, "Maybe everyone who doesn't like it has been doing wrong. Like this." He rubbed his hips against hers. Side to side in a motion that could never have worked. He was still spent from the last time but she could feel that part of him against her thigh.

He was laughing. She had over heard one of his brother's friends refer to a girl as a dead fish. She flopped back under Will, as limp as she could be and his laughter overflowed. She couldn't stay still under him while he laughed like that and she reached up to pull him in. They wrestled a little laughing and struggling to try and find the least possible position. When he rolled onto his back and she climbed up on top of him, he paused with a very different expression on his face.

"This would work," he said. His hands sat on her waist and they guided her higher, so she was no longer straddling his thigh but his hips.

"I have no idea what to do," she admitted. He held her in place and she could feel that he was no longer soft below her. She swung her hips sideways as he had done when he was on top of her before. It wouldn't work to "do it properly" but it rubbed sensitive skin across sensitive skin and they both reacted. He groaned and grabbed her harder and her mouth fell open in a gasp.

"Do you want to try?" he asked and it wasn't a plea but it was very, very close to one.

"What do I do?" she asked him.

"I have as much of a clue as you do," he said as he reached down to position himself at her entrance.

"I'm not going to be able to walk later," she murmured.

"Walking is overrated," Will said.

"It is," she agreed as she pushed her body down over his.

Before he had been the one to slip into her but now it felt was more like she was pulling him in. His hands on her waist were insistent and she let them lead. If it had been deep before it was nothing compared to this. Her eyes fell shut and she cried out as her body came to rest against his. The sensation sent a tremour through her. Not the release that she'd felt before. This was something closer to anticipation. She held still. Her hands were braced on either side of his head and his fingers were still biting into her hips from their place on her waist.

"Will?" she said and she wasn't sure what she wanted from him. Reassurance maybe.

"My Tessa," he answered her pulling her down so their bodies were pressed together and he was still buried so deeply inside her she imagined that if she moved the right way she'd be able to feel him brush against her lungs.

"Move for me," he said into her mouth.

She shifted her hips and he slipped just a little farther inside. She hadn't thought there was more space. She pulled back and kept rising on her knees until there was only the briefest contact. Then she let go and slid all the back down. Deeper still. She cried out softly when their bodies met again. Will made a noise that was incoherent and she did it again. The feel of him leaving her and then the reentering was exquisite and perfect and yet not what she really wanted. Bodies touching, she twisted her hips instead of raising them and that came closer to matching up to her body's need.

Being the one in control intimidated her but every touch, every whispered word, that Will gave her told her that it was amazing. She experimented and discovered that if she arched her hips the right way she could rub that spot on her body against his stomach as she moved. Having control of that was even more intimidating. She felt the release coming and pulled back from it in a moment of panic.

It left her sitting on him. Her hips against his. Her legs spread wide. Him so deeply inside her she was still surprised it didn't impede her breathing. She sat over him, looking down at his half-lidded eyes. He was contented and trusted her completely. In that moment she could have done anything to him and he would have thanked her for it. The release teased at her body, promising her that it was right there and but she wasn't able to take it.

Will finally noticed her hesitation. She still sat over him as his hands stroked inward from her waist and her hips over her stomach and then upward. His hands found her breasts and he rolled her nipples between her fingers hard enough to skirt that pain line again and her hesitation disappeared into the need. His hands were still on her and she leaned over him. There was no grace to the way her hips moved against his. That point of contact between herself and his stomach tore another cry out of her and she didn't manage to catch herself before she collapsed onto his chest.

He tried to thrust from below her but it didn't quite work so he grasped her hips and guided her body of his. Shuddering and incoherent she arched her back and let him have that control. He held tight and moved her body against his own. Lifting her hips and then pulling them back down while her fingers twisted in his hair and she made helpless noises against his chest. He came gasping and grabbing hard enough that she expected to find bruises on her waist the next morning. He said something low and in Welsh into her neck. S

he had been close to a second and when he stopped she started again, twisting her hips against him. He was still inside her but softening and she hoped that this wouldn't hurt him. She let the need take control and she twisted her hips hard to rub her body against his stomach until the shuddering took her. Will stepped in at the last moment and pushed that second orgasm into a third with his fingers in the right place. That third one was loud enough that he clamped his hand over her mouth. She pushed into him and pulled away from him simultaneously as the release shook her to the core.

She came back to herself cradled against his chest. Gentle. He was back to being so gentle but she knew she was missing time.

"Will?" she asked as he stroked her hair away from her face.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No," she said though she could feel the bruises coming in on her hips and back where his fingers had held on too tightly. The aches weren't something to be concerned about. She asked, "Did I faint?"

"Maybe a little," Will said. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm not sorry," Tessa said. Her voice didn't sound right to her own ears. Like she'd borrowed it from someone else. Someone throaty and sensual. "Do it again."

"You will faint again," he said which was true. Her entire body was lit up. The touch of his hand against her shoulder which was intended to comfort was like spark to kindling.

"I don't care," she said. "One more time."

Her mouth found his through instinct more than intention. On her order his hand slid down but he was so gentle that it was almost torture. She was on her back and she didn't remember how she got there. Her thighs were spread wide and his fingers moved over her. Her entire body was connected to that point and every other thing made her stomach clench or her thighs press wider or her breathing shudder. His hair brushed her forehead and her entire body trembled.

She couldn't remember a time that her entire self had felt like this. Love set on fire. Bodies that couldn't be close enough. His lips closed on hers as his fingers teased at her. Coaxing her body toward what it wanted. She managed not to beg for a long time before she started whispering, "Please, please don't stop," into his kisses. He didn't increase the intensity. Her ability to think was still deeply clouded by want and desire and a physical need.

He was gentle. His fingers played over her, his hand smoothed over her breasts and her stomach but his hand between her legs was gentle. She was on the brink of it but he wouldn't push her over and she was too disoriented to do it herself. She was completely at his mercy. He held her there. On the very gentle wrong side of an orgasm she wanted more desperately with ever brushing finger tip.

Will was whispering soothing things into her ear but the words were lost when he stopped teasing and pushed her over the edge.

"Can we cancel everything else we have to do forever and just do that?" Will asked her.

"I don't think I'd survive it," she told him.

"Hmmm," he said, "That would be a problem. Should we call down for breakfast?"

"Not yet," she said. "I'm not ready to get up yet. Stay with me."

"I've no where I'd rather be," he said pulling her close.


	3. Chapter 3

Tessa wore only the chemise from her dress as she moved around the room. She trailed her fingers over the empty bookshelves and the empty mantle over the empty fireplace. It was warm enough that neither of them felt the need to rebuild the fire. Will had pushed the windows open and the room was lit by sunlight and smelled of spring.

This room was a blank slate. A blank slate with terrible wallpaper. It didn't have their books in it yet. Nothing about it had been chosen by them. They would though. They would choose bedspreads and paintings. They would make this space their own. Will knew it was considered normal by many for a married couple to have separate chambers. In fact, there was a suite across the hall that was technically Tessa's but he liked the idea of making a space together. She had been the one to get attached to the balcony and the bookshelves in this room. It was hers as much as it was his.

He watched her. She was slow and methodical, obviously thinking. The chemise covered her but was thin enough that it didn't really obscure much. She reached up to adjust a horrendous painting of a landscape that had been knocked askew when Will had thrown her corset at it. The line of her body was visible through the white fabric. He swallowed the desire down but let his eyes wander over her. She was barefoot which was almost more intimate than her state of undress. He couldn't say why but his attention kept being drawn back to narrow ankles and the flare of her calves as the disappeared beneath the fabric of the nightgown.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm allowed, I've got it in writing," he said. "I had it written into the marriage certificate specifically."

"It's almost indecent," she said.

"Unlike everything else we've done this morning," he said. He tried for a serious voice but he was fairly certain his expression crossed the line from admiring to leering at just the thought of what they'd been doing before. He was indecent but the comment made her smile as though she was also thinking those same indecent thoughts. He could spend his lifetime making her smile.

"I'm starving but I don't want to call the maid," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"There's a spell on this morning," she said walking towards him. The rest of the world got indistinct when she turned her full attention on him. It had been a problem almost since he met her but it had become almost painful in the months of their engagement. The wanting swallowed his thoughts whole sometimes. She was saying, "I'm afraid of breaking it. I don't want to talk to other people."

"You stay here, I will go find food," he said pushing himself out of the chair he had been lounging in. He hadn't put on anything but the trousers from the night before. Tessa had finished crossing the room and put her hands on his bare chest. He reevaluated whether he really needed to eat to survive or if it was just a myth told to children.

"Brave hunter," she teased.

"Perhaps I should learn to hunt, like an American outdoorsman. I have a wife to provide for now," he said and her faux serious expression shattered into a smile and he leaned down to kiss her. He had learned the basics of hunting with his father as a child but had never really cared for it. Demon hunting had a purpose, fox hunts were just a game of ripping apart animals. He had overheard his mother say that he was too kind and gentle at 10 for fox hunts. She had been right. He had taken objection to it regardless and stomached the fox hunts because he wanted to be tough like his father.

"You're going to give up hunting demons so we can move to the Western Frontier and you can trap rabbits and hunt buffalo?" she asked.

"I could become a cowboy from a penny dreadful," he kissed her again, "I could chase down outlaws and keep prairie towns safe." She laughed into his mouth and he entirely forgot what he'd been planning to do.

"You would look good in one of those hats," she told him. Each sentence was punctuated with little glancing kisses. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer and kissed her deeply. Her arms were around his neck and she kissed him back. Every time she did this, his heart expanded. She gave him back as much love as he gave her and it was incredible. He wasn't sure his heart would still fit in his chest if it kept this up.

"You'll need a shirt," she said when she pulled back. He could feel every part of her body through her lack of clothing and he was momentarily confused.

"To be a cowboy?" he asked.

"No, well, yes. I suppose, yes you would, but you promised be breakfast and you'll need a shirt before you go find Jenny," she said. "You might make Jenny faint if she saw you like this. She sometimes looks like she's fit to faint just because you asked her something."

Jenny was Sophie's replacement and she still felt like a stranger in the household though she'd been with the London Institute for months. Blonde, narrow boned, fully trained at the Edinburgh Institute. She was a good maid but Will knew that Tessa missed Sophie. They'd been friends. Jenny was staff. It wasn't the same and Jenny was incapable of looking directly at Will which made every conversation he had with her uncomfortable.

"It's because I am exceptionally handsome," he said.

"You are," she said touching his face with a soft smile on her face. "But you're mine now and I'd be most upset if you went about seducing the new staff."

"Can I seduce the old staff?" he asked.

"William!" she said mock glaring at him. He grinned and pulled her even closer so he could press his face into the curve of her neck and whisper against her skin.

"I don't want to seduce the new staff, or the old staff, or anyone who isn't you. You do know that. Tell me you know that Tess. I don't want anyone who isn't you. I never will," he had been joking when he'd started but suddenly he was worried. Worried that the reputation he'd cultivated had been too well built. Worried that she might doubt him.

"I know," she said and he could feel her lips on his hair. He relaxed into her. Not the passionate embrace of the kiss, not the clinging anxiety that he was going to ruin this, he just held her close.

"Besides, Bridget wouldn't put up with it. I'd find you stuffed in an oven," she said laughing and pushing him away to go find Jenny.

Will found a shirt in the wardrobe and went to ring for the maid. She brought a tray of food up to the room and carefully arranged it on the little table in the sitting area. Will patiently waited for her to leave. He even managed to avoid tapping his foot or pushing her out the door when she turned to ask, again, if there was anything else they needed.

This was why people went on honeymoons immediately, Will decided. Because otherwise they killed the members of their household who got in the way of going back to bed.

Will closed the door on her as politely as he could. Jenny was still new and Will didn't want to start off on the wrong foot with her but he really wanted her gone. She smiled at him without actually looking at him. He had used his appearance as a weapon in the days before the curse had been lifted. It had been a tool in his efforts to push people away. He'd learned to be a beautiful monster. Now he found himself unsettled each time he was reminded that he could make some people uncomfortable just by looking at them. He wasn't sure how to navigate that yet.

He picked up the tray and pushed his way back into the other room. Tessa sat in the middle of the bed. If he was surprised by the fact that he could make Jenny blush just by making eye contact it was nothing compared to his bafflement that anyone could get anything done with Tessa in the room. Her one knee was tucked up underneath her but the other was stretched out on the mattress and wasn't covered by her chemise. She was brushing out her hair and didn't notice him for a moment. Her eyes were shut and her head tilted to the side as she ran the brush through the curtain of hair.

Will balanced the tray on the little table by the side of the bed where they didn't stack candles and books yet but they would. She kept brushing but her face lit up when she saw him. He climbed up beside her. She blushed and tucked her bare leg up under her body.

These flashes of shyness reminded him that she was just a girl. They were far too young to be getting married and taking over an institute. Someone was going to notice and send them back to their governesses while reminding them to stop pretending to be adults before they were ready.

By tilting her head, Tessa left the long line of her throat exposed and when he was close enough he kissed her there. She startled just a bit and he pulled away instead of pushing higher as he'd intended. Her face was unreadable but her eyes were big and trained on him.

"You always look at me," he said. "You see me in a way that no one else ever has."

"That's unfortunate," she said leaning in to kiss the side of his throat as he had done to her. His skin shuddered of its own accord and he understood the little startled jump he'd gotten from her a moment before. She kept talking but he was only half listening because she was kissing him again as she said, "Everyone else must live in such poverty to never see you like this."

"I could put on exhibitions, if you'd like," he murmured.

"I'd like it if you would pass me a cup of tea," she said pulling away from his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. He'd been paying attention over the months of their engagement and he had amassed a list of things she liked including exactly how she took her tea. He leaned back against the headboard and she cuddled in beside him with the tea cup held between both hands.

They ate in near silence and the longer they sat together the more Tessa's shyness evaporated like dew in sunlight. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her knee was crossed over his even though it made the chemise slide up to expose a lot of skin. She didn't seem to notice that she was bare almost to her hip.

He passed her bits of food so she didn't have to move. He was breaking up her pieces of toast when she stopped taking them with her hands and just took it out of his fingers with her mouth. Soft lips brushed his fingers and he forgot how to breathe.

It must have been on his face because she smiled at him. She jostled him just a little with her shoulder and tilted her chin up. Her mouth was open and smiling and he kissed her before continuing to feed her breakfast piece by piece. She licked crumbs off his fingers and he groaned very softly.

If he hadn't had the idea to start inviting her take things out of his mouth, they might have finished the tray. It was a bit of pear that finally pushed them over the edge. Tessa had been laughing and Will had been smiling so hard it was hard to chew. She dropped the fruit giggling at him and it landed in her lap. He caught her hands before she could pick it up and leaned down to retrieve it.

"Will!" she said as she squirmed out of his grasp. He had to press his face into her thigh in order to get it back and when he looked up at her the giggles had become a warmer deeper smile. In wrestling for control of her hands she'd thrown a leg over his lap and the chemise was hiked up so high, she was nearly undressed. Will watched her face as he trailed fingers up her leg. When he got to the hem, he paused and she nodded her encouragement. She lifted her hips so he could pull it up and then over her head.

"You're blushing," he told her. She blushed from her cheeks, down her throat and across her chest. He brushed his fingers over the pink skin and her cheeks darkened.

"Can I ask a question?" she said.

"Never again, I had that written into the marriage certificate too, no more questions," he told her. She frowned at him. He was still tracing very gentle lines over her chest, across her stomach, down her thighs but he paused to put his thumb on her chin and tilt her face down to look her right in the eyes when he said, "You can ask my anything, always,"

She blushed harder and he bit back the curiosity and waited. She would ask. She couldn't help it. He didn't need to push her. He waited and watched her. Fragile and strong. Confident enough to lay below him without hiding or turning away, shy enough to blush when he looked at her. Blue and gray. Girl and woman. Shadowhunter and Warlock. Nothing about her was simple but everything about her was beautiful.

"Ask me," he prompted.

She bit her lip before asking, "Do you decide when it does that?" He had no idea what she was talking about until she put a hand on his stomach and slid it lower. He was still fully dressed which suddenly seemed like the stupidest possible thing to be.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he lied, "Show me?"

He should have known better than to challenge her. She pushed him back and once he was sitting up her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. He ran his hand down her back while she undid each button. For months, each little bit of skin had been a secret and a mystery. Her wrists beneath cuffs, her collar bone below lace, her throat wrapped in a scarf. How many hours had he spent considering each piece of skin hidden beneath clothing. Now she sat before him, comfortable and smiling, wearing nothing but her necklace and her cascade of hair.

Once he was as naked as she was he said, "Oh, that, no, that's not a thing I decide, I think it might be your fault."

"My fault?" she asked.

"You touch me and it just happens," he said leaned his face into her hair which fell in waves brushed but still holding twists and kinks from the style it had been pulled into the night before. "Sometimes I think about you and it just happens." He pushed his face a little deeper into her hair as he said it. It had happened. No one had ever noticed but it was still embarrassing to have to stay sitting at the library table or drop the book he had been reading onto his lap and start a conversation with whomever was nearby until it went away.

"Truly?" she asked and he nodded silently.

"I suppose it doesn't happen to you," he said.

"Different... parts," she said. "Though I think I can imagine the kind of thoughts that might make it happen."

"Ladies aren't supposed to have those kinds of thoughts," Will told her pulling back from her hair.

"Then maybe I don't want to be a lady," she said. She never questioned that they might have had the same sorts of thoughts. His mind supplied the unwanted question, "Did she ever think them about Jem?" and Will's heart hurt. It wasn't imagining Tessa's thoughts that hurt. It was Jem. Jem would not have this. Not with her, not with anyone. No one would ever press a warm shoulder into Jem's chest and laugh against his skin. That wasn't fair or right.

Tessa pulled him back to the moment. She was still blushing she met his eye and smiled as her hand moved. While they had talked she had left it curled around his hip much as his hand sat at the dip at her waist. Her fingers found him and he gasped. Just fingertips. Glancing, gentle, curious. How the girl manage to ask questions with her fingertips was not something Will could explain.

"Higher or lower?" she asked just as he'd asked her the night before.

"Lower and tighter," he said taking her hand. She let him wrap her fingers around him and for a few strokes he guided her hand to show her what he meant.

"Like that?" she asked and his answer was a not quite coherent groan as he leaned his face back into her hair and tightened his fingers on her hip. The skin of her hands was so much softer than his and she was still curious and gentle. He'd always felt a little like he was doing something wrong when he did this himself. Abusing oneself they called it. She had none of his guilt about it, her hands were slow. Hands. One stroking slowly up and down the entire length of him, while the other one was on his stomach, on his thigh, lower. He gasped again.

"That's a good sound, right?" her voice was right in his ear.

"That's good, yes," he said and she took his previous request of tighter literally and, "Tess," escaped from him. Her name became an expletive or maybe it was a prayer. He hooked a hand under her knee, pulled her down and rolled her over in one motion. Her hands didn't leave him but they lost that even rhythm that had been chipping away at his self control.

"Will it hurt you?" he asked and she shook her head no. He guided her hands away and they started to wander up his chest as she spread her knees for him. His hand still lingered on her waist and he felt the way her hips shifted to meet him as he pressed himself down against her and then into her. It was as easy as the kiss that followed. She still tasted like pears and red currant jam.

Her hands were everywhere. There shouldn't have been enough of her to surround his entire body like this. He drowned in the sensations of her. The smell of her hair, the texture of her thighs where they touched his, the little sounds she made in the back of her throat when she liked something. He kissed her and the movements of his body were an extension of that. They were stiller than they had been before. Hips shifting together not stroking or thrusting.

"I don't deserve you," he told her in the middle of it when every wall he'd ever constructed between his emotions and the world lay crumbled at her feet. She stilled beneath him. He hadn't realized how much she moved with him until she stopped. Her hands found his face. Some piece of the Will he had spent so many years creating scrambled to rebuild the wall between his vulnerability and the truth. It was hopeless. He couldn't find anything that might keep her out. He stopped fighting it and let her see it.

"Yes you do," she said. "You deserve the world, Will."

He started to protest and she shook her head and he fell silent. In that instant, pressed together, he would have done anything for her. Anything at all. She kissed him. They were so close she barely needed to raise her face to do it.

"But this isn't about being deserving, William," she said and as he could in rare flashes, he heard Jem in her voice, "Don't make the world a game. It isn't that simple. We don't earn our lives. We create them. I love you. I want to be with you. I don't care what the world thinks we deserve. I care what you want. I care what I want. I want you."

"I want you too," he said and he kissed her again. Her hands in his hair held him close as he moved against her again.

Release took him first but he couldn't pull away from her even as his body shuddered and protested. She arched into him so soon after that it was almost the same sensation. She twisted her hips just enough that his over sensitive skin brought him gasping with her. He pulled back but rested his head against her chest. He lay between her thighs but no longer inside her. Their hands still moved over skin while their breathing settled.

"We create our lives," Will said.

"Together," Tessa said.


	4. Chapter 4

Will did not enjoy not being good at things and he was not particularly good at running the Institute. Technically, it was Charlotte's for another two months but there were meetings he needed to be at before he and Tessa could leave for their honeymoon. Each day he discovered new oceans of knowledge that he didn't have. The exact treaties with the werewolves that governed London's east end were only the most recent thing that he had had to look to Charlotte to fill in his missing knowledge.

He spent evenings reading up on the agreements beyond the Accords. He spent afternoons pestering Charlotte to explain how exactly one answered a royal invite from the Faeries without being rude and how to tell from the stationery whether it was an invite from the Seelie Court or the Unseelie. He had thought he knew so much. He'd spent his 5 years with the Nephilim learning everything he could but it wasn't nearly enough. Not yet.

Tessa kept him sane. She sat with him and asked the questions he needed to hear. She read through things before he did and told him which parts he could skip. She was learning as much as he was and unlike him, she knew when to snap a book shut and stop.

"You're not going to remember it if you start on the next one now," she said, "I don't care about the memosyne rune, you are not going to be able tell these cases apart later if you don't stop for a few minutes."

"How does Charlotte remember all of this?" he asked waving a hand at the collection of papers spread across the table in the library.

"I suspect she doesn't," Tessa said, "She looks things up as she needs to know them. You're not the Inquisitor or one of his lawyers, and even they don't need to know everything all at once."

"The Shadowhunters still think I'm a mad drunk," Will said tossing a book across the desk. "And they've got a higher opinion of me than most of Downworld does. I can't afford to be stupid as well."

He didn't say things like that when there were other people around but they had the library to themselves. The Lightwoods had taken the patrols that evening and Charlotte and Henry were off ensconced in the nursery with baby Charles. The maids had brought them tea after dinner and then hurried away while Will glowered at papers and Tessa made gentle apologies for him.

"Then you can't afford to exhaust yourself and forget everything you already know," she said.

"Then what do you suggest?" he asked.

"Lock the door," she said in an even voice stacking up a pile of complaints that had been submitted to the Institute over the past six months.

"What did you say?" he asked.

This time he got a little half smile and sideways glance. She hesitated a moment and bit her lip before repeating herself, "Lock the door. I'm going to distract you."

He turned to look at her and she held her lower lip between her teeth while her smile widened. She was the picture of respectable. Her hair was done neatly and she wore the gray striped dress she'd worn the day he'd told her about the curse. She even wore gloves because one of the boxes of reports they'd pulled down was old enough that its contents couldn't be touched with bare fingers. Perfectly respectable except for her teeth sinking into her lip and the look in her eyes.

He considered protesting for a split second before getting up and swinging the door shut and throwing the lock. No one would be back to check on them for hours but he still wanted the lock between everyone else and that look. He came back to the table. She hadn't gotten up so he sunk back down into the chair beside her. Whatever was in the papers was suddenly distant and uninteresting. She was taking the pins out of her careful hair style. Slowly.

"What are you doing?" he asked smiling.

"You can't so much as kiss me without knocking my hair loose," she said.

"And you're intending more than kissing?" he asked and his voice hitched. He swallowed. He was frozen, watching her careful fingers remove pins and pile them on the table as locks of her hair fell loose around her face. He reached out and touched one of the free pieces, running it between his fingers as she freed the rest of it.

She shook her head a little once it all hung down around her and he pushed more of it back from her face but didn't touch more than her hair. She considered him as though trying to decide something important. He waited for her to tell him what she intended.

"As long as you're head of the Institute, this is our library," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"There's a window seat on the second floor, back behind all the demon language dictionaries," she said. "It's bigger than the ones down here."

His answer wasn't a word, it was a noise that began in the pit of his stomach and died in his throat. He didn't trust his voice. She'd thought about this. Thought about this in detail. She'd chosen a place. The window on that side overlooked an empty courtyard. They'd be invisible even if someone walked below them. They'd be too high to be seen and with the door shut the library was a private kingdom.

"If you want to," she said taking his extended silence as hesitation. He saw the teasing confidence falter.

"I more than want to," he said and both the confidence and the smile came back, she stood up. He'd been leaning in, sitting at the edge of his chair in an attempt to be just a little closer to her. When she looked down at him, her skirts were pressed against his knees and he had to look up the line of her very carefully dressed body to see her face.

She'd worn that dress the day she'd broken his heart into shards he hadn't thought could ever be repaired. When he remembered that day now, he remembered the sad smile and the promise that people loved him and the way she had never really said that she didn't. Every time she turned those big gray eyes, which looked so blue against the dress, on him the cracks healed. He'd loved her and lost her and doubted that she could ever love him the way he loved her. The doubt was gone. Day by day, she kept washing it farther out to sea.

"Come with me," she said holding out her still gloved hands.

He took a moment to pull them off, moving as slowly as she had with the hair pins. He rubbed his fingers along the sensitive skin at her wrists until her breathing changed then he pulled the glove off and ran his hands over hers. She never looked away from him. He couldn't imagine he'd ever doubted that she loved him. He couldn't imagine a time when she hadn't looked at him like that. Once her hands were bare, he took them and stood just as slowly. Her eyes followed him up until he stood taller than her and she needed to raise her chin to hold his gaze.

She ran her tongue over her lip but neither of them moved to complete the promise of the kiss. She stepped back and pulled him towards the stairs and the suddenly very intriguing prospect of Purgatic dictionaries. The aisles at the top of the stairs were narrow. Downstairs aesthetic choices had been made: books in cases and broad shelves to show volumes to their best advantage. Upstairs, the bookshelves had been rearranged time and time again over the years to fit more in. Each shelf was tight packed. She wove through them, knowing exactly where she was going because it was a library and of course Tessa had walked every aisle.

He let her lead. They could have cut through the German folk tales but she took them on a longer route past Faerie lore and then Shadowhunter histories. He put his hands on her waist and stopped her. She stepped back into him with a gasp as though he'd burned her. He pulled her closer and her breathing was ragged. Anticipation ran through them both like lightning.

"This one has an excellent bit on the spread of the first vampires," he said lifting a book off the shelf. It was a heavy, leather bound translation of a German volume. It had the Clave seal stamped in gold on the spine. Tessa leaned her shoulders into his chest and he craned his neck over her shoulder so his cheek brushed hers. It pulled another gasping breath out of her as though he were touching her much more intimately than he truly was.

"Can I read it later?" she asked him. His cheek was against hers and he could just barely see her cast a glance at him out of the side of her eye.

"Do you have something else do be doing right now?" he asked and his voice wasn't nearly as nonchalant as he wanted it to be. It was hard to tease someone when you wanted what they were offering more than you wanted to breathe.

"My husband is wearing too many clothes," she said, "Something needs to be done before I take time to read. It's very important."

"It is very important," he agreed. Her laugh was as unsteady as her voice had been but it was deep and happy. He had his hands spread across her waist and even through the dress and the corset and everything else she wore he could feel the way her whole body laughed. He felt like very party he'd ever attended had had at least one group of tittering girls, laughing at jokes they didn't think were funny because they wanted someone to like them.

He wasn't sure Tessa had ever laughed like that in her life. When she laughed, she meant it. From the tips of her toes through to the the little crinkle at the bridge of her nose, she laughed with every part of her. He held her just a little longer to feel that laughter before releasing her so she could go back to leading him to where she wanted him.

Tessa climbed up on the window seat on her knees to look out at the courtyard below. It seemed to make her nervous so Will pulled the curtains shut. It was dark out but even still the light from the window had given the space more illumination than it had now. The tight labyrinth of bookshelves blocked most of the light from the central part of the library and the little witchlight sconces here were turned low when no one used the space.

Tessa turned to him, still kneeling and she was a patchwork of shadows. He could see her lips and her eye clearly but the other side of her face was hidden. She tilted her head up to him and he lost her eyes to the shadows completely until he got close enough. He tried to hold the moment before the first kiss but she pulled him the rest of the way in. She met his anticipation with a desire that burned hot.

His first instinct, to push her down with a kiss and a hand on her hip like he did when he took her to bed didn't work in such a narrow space. He ended up pushing her back against the curtains and the window behind. A larger window seat was not a bed. She was still kneeling but there wasn't space for him on the bench at that angle.

"I have plans for you, Mr. Herondale," she said pushing him back just enough to whisper against his lips.

"Anything you want," he told her, "Anything at all."

"Sit down," she said.

He pulled away from her and sat down, feet flat on the floor, hands folded in his lap. They didn't stay there. He could stop himself from reaching for her.

She didn't wear a crinoline or a bustle to sit and read papers in the library but even still when she climbed into his lap, her skirts took up a lot of space. They pushed high in an ocean of fabric around them. He felt her knees on either side of his thighs. He pushed skirts out of the way until his hands found her legs, still too many clothes to find skin but he pushed his hands higher and her mouth was partly open. She leaned down to kiss him. He used his hands on her knees to pull her closer and she braced her hands on his shoulders.

Will brought his hand up to hold her waist and then slid it around to start undoing buttons. He had ceased to care where they were only that she was there. She grabbed his fingers and wrapped hers around them. Her skin was hot or maybe his was. He made a little frustrated noise at being stopped but looked up at her and waited for her explanation.

"I can't get this dress back on by myself," she said. "You are useless for helping with that and you know it. Don't take it off."

"How?" he asked and the surprise was all over her face. Their eyes locked for a long moment and she glanced around them and he remembered that they were in the library. The door was locked but this was still the library. She bit her lip again and settled a little tighter to him. Why was there so much clothing?

She made a decision, he saw it cross her face. She leaned in to whisper into his ear, "Carefully," before she untucked his shirt and ran her hands along the skin underneath. He swallowed hard. He'd thought the lack of crinoline had been for comfort now he was imagining her planning this all day and it made his mouth go dry and his breath come harder.

She read his expression and her face broke into a wide smile. She gathered his face in her hands and tilted it up. He had stumble on his jaw he wasn't aware of until her palms ran along it. Sitting over him, she was taller, and so it was her who had to bend to kiss him. He kissed her back with just a little desperation. He was painfully hard and everything else she'd done had been so slow. Anticipation burned and rattled through him. He couldn't look at anything that wasn't her face.

Tessa had to stand to shimmy her way out of the undergarments beneath the dress and he slid forward to keep his hands on her as she did. He attempted to help but felt mostly that his clumsy, needy hands were getting in her way. Petticoats and a pair of drawers dropped to the floor in a pile of white linen.

Her kisses were little promises each time she leaned down to meet his partially open mouth. He couldn't close it. He tried and then some expression on her face or a brush of fabric would pull another gasp from him. She was just as slow with this process of half undressing as she had been with her hair and he wanted to beg. He wanted to give up on her plans and push her down onto the floor. He was sure it was on his face.

"Maybe we should stop and read up on the spread of vampirism," she said when he was pretty sure she was out of undergarments. She bent at the waist and her face was very close to his. She was all confidence and her teasing didn't come out as shaky as his had.

"I'm sure it's memorized," he said. "I could tell you about it but not with my clothes on, very special rune. Doesn't work when fully dressed."

She laughed again but her fingers were on his buttons. She undid them and ran her fingers down his bare chest but didn't take it off. He still wore his open jacket, open waistcoat and open shirt. She kissed a line down bare skin and then met his eyes and started on his pants. Those he kicked off and when they got caught on his shoes he pried those off too without unlacing them.

He couldn't remember how to form words. When she climbed back into his lap to kiss him, he felt her bare thighs against his and groaned. She looked fully dressed when he opened his eyes to take her in. The dress wasn't even pulled askew. He ran his fingers through her hair and looked at her like she was the entire world.

She kissed him as she reached down through the tangle of her skirt to position him in the right place. She slid onto him still looking almost exactly as she had when she'd sat beside him at the meeting that afternoon. He'd never be able to disconnect the sensation and the image. He'd have to ask her to never wear this dress in public again. He'd certainly no longer remember it as the dress she'd broken his heart in.

Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp as it always did when he entered her. Will gathered her hair in one hand, wrapping it around his wrist before his palm found her neck. He was pulling just a little and it tilted her head back, leaving her throat exposed. His mouth closed on the skin above the collar and he grazed teeth across it. Her reaction started with tightening muscles deep inside her and he groaned louder against her skin and undid the first couple buttons so he could kiss the entire line of her throat from collarbone to jawline.

She moved slow and tantalizing, just rising and falling on him as her thighs tightened and released. He pressed his face to her fully clothed shoulder and held her waist, letting her set this maddeningly slow rise and fall rhythm. It was too much and not enough.

"Please, Tess," he finally begged her. "Harder, please."

She didn't answer him with words. She was holding his head close to her neck as he kissed and sucked along the skin there. She spread her knees wider and sank all the way onto him. They both gasped. He knew this was uncomfortable for her but she didn't stop. She moved from her hips. Their bodies were locked together and he wrapped his arms all the way around her and was surprised to realize he was whispering her name over and over against her throat.

She moved slowly still but the deepness made up for it. She cried out softly though nothing he had done had changed and her intensity changed. The slowness was gone. She rocked against him hard and he knew he was holding her too tight. Her head was pulled back by the fist he'd made in her hair and he found the focus to force those fingers to loosen. They closed again on the bodice of her dress, squeezing soft flesh through the unyielding corset. He wanted to strip off the rest of her clothes and hold her breasts in his hands but he could barely remember how to sit up straight let alone how buttons and lacing worked.

She cried out again and he found her face. Her cheeks were red, her mouth was open, he'd left marks down her throat, her collar was askew and each time she rocked into him her expression tightened in a look that was almost pain. He hadn't hurt her but she was close to her release. He was learning to see it. He was learning to coax it out of her. He was learning the difference between coaxing it out of her and bringing her over that edge hard.

His clumsy fingers fought their way through all the fabric of the skirt to find the place where their bodies joined so that he could push her over that edge. It was going to be hard. The coaxing was over for the evening. She screamed. It wasn't a gasp or a cry, it was a scream and she pressed her face into the bare skin of his chest to try and bury it as she fell apart in his arms. If he'd let go, she would have fallen to the floor.

He had thought he was closer than she was but he was still hard and needy beneath her. He held her without more than a few unconscious shifts of his hips. She whimpered into his shoulder with each one and wrapped her arms more tightly around him. He listened. Listened for someone running to help the screaming girl in the library but there was no sound. She'd probably sent everyone off on some errand to keep them far away.

He lifted her and she cried out again. He'd planned to turn her around and lie her out on the bench to finish but he wasn't coordinated enough for that. He barely managed to avoid dumping her onto the floor. He laid her down in a motion that didn't hurt her but hardly counted as graceful. She lay below him against the library carpet. She no longer looked neat. Her face was flushed and she breathed hard. Her hair was spread around them. Her eyes were wide and intense.

"Was this your plan?" he asked her.

"Just about, yes," she told him in a gasping voice.

He leaned down over her and pushed the blasted skirt out of the way to enter her again. She cried out at just that and her fingers tightened. One of her hands was in the shirt front hanging open over her, the other was in his hair. He might have had ideas about gentleness and taking his time but he didn't have the control for it.

He pressed himself as close to her as he could, turned her face to his for a kiss and used his hips to push as deeply into her as he could manage. She whimpered and murmured and stroked his chest until he brought another scream from her. Gentle fingers became nails that raked a line down his chest as though seeking something to hold onto.

He came as hard as she did and the noise he made was deeper but still far closer to a scream than anything else. Their eyes locked as they both tried to find the ability to breathe after. The floor was hard so he pulled her up and leaned back in the window seat with her tucked into his side. She was breathing evenly but more deeply than normal as she settled into his chest.

"Are you distracted?" she asked him.

"No, I'm very focused. I am focused on you and this piece of skin here," his fingers were behind her ear and she giggled just a little and tucked her face in tighter to his chest, "and this one," he touched her ankle with a bare foot, "and this part here," he ran his thumb along her lips and she answered him with a smile. She raised her head and he kissed her.

"I am never going to be able to look at you in this dress without thinking about this," he said flattening the wrinkles out of it where it lay across his lap. He wasn't entirely sure where his pants had gone.

"I like this dress," she said. "I was going to wear it when we went to see your mother at Easter."

"Don't you dare do that to me," he told her and she laughed. He kissed the little crinkle on her nose when she did. "It is going to be hard enough hosting Clave meetings in this room."

"You're too easily distracted," she said.

"Shush," he said. "I am nearly impossible to distract. You have the unfair advantage of being the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and impressively determined."

"I hardly had to twist your arm to convince you," she said.

"Not true, my honour has been utterly besmirched by your seduction," he nuzzled her hair as he said it. "You're leading me astray."

"Where else could I lead you?" she asked and his imagination almost short circuited trying to think of answers to that. He pulled her in a little closer and kissed her again. Her smile was just a little bit wicked but it softened and deepened as he kissed her again.

"I'll follow you anywhere," he said.

Notes:

When I first wrote this I thought it was a little too public and a little too improper for Tessa (especially young Tessa) to plan but I don't think she was intending to go that far until Will met her suggestion with that kind of near-incoherent desire. They play off each other and crank one another up and her planned make out session suddenly becomes so much more than that.

That said, I will argue forever that she's the sexually adventurous one in this relationship and Will probably spent their entire marriage happily getting himself seduced just on the edges of his comfort zone.

But yeah, she really had chosen not to wear a crinoline because she knew that she was going to be sitting and reading for hours not because she had plans to get half naked and have semi-public sex. Will's imagination runs away with him just a little.


End file.
